


Spaces

by Mab (Mab_Browne)



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 14:28:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1473169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mab_Browne/pseuds/Mab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim makes space for Blair upstairs.</p><p>First posted 2009 at LJ and Artifact Storage Room 3</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spaces

Jim is making space in the bedroom, clearing out drawers and making a place in the closet for Blair's things when Blair sees it; a small photograph album, stiff card covers and metal screw connectors, covered in red cloth that's fraying at the corners.

"What's that?"

"What's it look like?" is Jim's answer. It's no answer at all, so Blair picks up the photograph album, which is, hey, surprise, photographs, held with the old fashioned paper brackets. They're yellowing now, and some of the photos start to slide out so Blair ends up cradling it all against his stomach like a baby.

A closer look shows men and women who were middle-aged and young in the nineteen-forties and fifties. There are a few shots of babies, colour pictures these, small boys, and Blair recognises who one of them is because he's seen at least one picture of Jim as a child already.

"Family album, huh?"

"Yeah." Jim shrugs. "My mother and her family. Me. Stevie. She left it behind when she moved out, I guess. Figured I had a right to it as much as anybody."

He takes it from Blair. The corners of some of the loose photos stick out, like glass shards on top of a forbidding wall. "Guess I should be grateful that Dad bothered to take care of his damn scrapbooks."

Blair shrugs in his turn. "Your Dad has more than just the scrapbooks these days."

"True," Jim says and eyes up the pile of sweaters on the bed. "We're going to have get some more storage in here. We won't be able to match the dresser, but we could try to tone something in with it. Unless you think we should go out and buy 'our' bedroom setting." Jim's eyes roll on the 'our'. Clearly the idea isn't setting him on fire.

Blair imagines them leafing through one of the catalogues that land in the mail box - your choice of sleigh-bed and matching dressers and armoires in walnut, cherry, and maple finishes - and he shakes his head. He's wanted in this room for a while now. He wants to wake up in Jim's sparely furnished space and be smack dab in the middle of it, lie under Jim's blue and yellow comforter and know that he's made it at last. Plenty of time to play Martha Stewart later.

"Ecologically unsound to unnecessarily replace stuff. This is fine. We could find something second hand and do it up. All sorts of options."

"So long as your first option is not bringing all your stuff up. And I'll take some of mine downstairs. This can go, for a start." Jim picks up the plastic sack of spare clothing and places the photograph album at the top and carries it downstairs, while Blair sorts socks and does some thinking.

When Jim returns, Blair asks, "Is that what the dissertation was like for you sometimes? A book of memories of you that weren't you, that you figured I was just going to leave behind?"

Jim shifts uneasily on his feet. "That doesn't really matter now, does it?" At Blair's skeptical look, he presses his lips together and stares out over the airy space beyond the railing. "Maybe." A pause. "I couldn't stand it."

Blair is folding his boxers with great precision, and then he spreads his hands, one pair hanging limp from his grip like a flag of surrender. "It's okay, man. I couldn't stand it either."

He lowers his head and goes back to folding underwear. Then Jim is behind him, warm and smelling like himself after a day in the same softly worn-out shirt, and gives Blair a kiss to the back of his ear, awkward and sincere.

"That's the deeper drawer," Jim says. "Might be better for your sweaters."


End file.
